> It it far more efficient of resources to have cars be used most fo the day, rather than sitting idle.

This is better and more easily addressed by car sharing services like car2go than autonomous cars. The more I use them the more I wish for a world where every car was shareable: you need to go somewhere? you simply get into the nearest parked car and drive it to where you want to go. And, unlike autonomy, there are no technical barriers to this, only the will to do it and the economic model to sustain it. Sadly these services seem to be in full retreat now but I will miss them and still hope they'll rise again soon.

> Most of the value is in taxi services

I’m imagining how gross a taxi would be that doesn’t have a driver to provide passengers a low level of behaviour moderation.

I actually think autonomous taxi services will be niche.

Think about Uber cars today. Their entire value proposition centres around them breaking parking laws in order to pick you up. Now the liability for that behaviour is with the driver. In an autonomous car the liability would be Uber which is why they won't do it.

An Uber that needs to look for parking in order to pick you up is never going to work in most busy cities. So I suspect you will see people opt for the driver based taxi service instead. Or maybe autonomous taxis will be reserved for emerging markets e.g. Indonesia which are more relaxed about parking.

A car also functions as a usually-secure place to store a good chunk of stuff, rather than taking it with you. This is more relevant if you have children (carseats) or take multiple-destination trips.

Having every parked, idle car driving around aimlessly around looking for fares is going to create incredible traffic congestion.

Studies have shown that the growth in Uber/Lyft has increased traffic congestion. This system autonomously will be even worse.

The margins on taxi services are so incredibly thin I find it difficult to believe there is any value in autonomous taxis. Especially when you take into account all the edge cases that will have to be accounted for, and the traffic that will be generated. Shipping and trucking are a massive industry, and I think automating highway driving has a much much better cost/benefit. Not to mention being safer.